


together we will rise

by madasaboxofcats



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, DarkOne!Emma, F/F, Fix-It, Post "Operation Mongoose"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasaboxofcats/pseuds/madasaboxofcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post "Operation Mongoose." </p>
<p>"There is a time, a month After (because there is Before and there is After, like this one event defines everything) when she laughs and laughs and laughs until Henry runs into her room and asks her what’s wrong because she never laughs, and now she can’t stop, tears streaming down her face and neither of them are sure if the tears are hysteria or sadness or a combination of both."</p>
            </blockquote>





	together we will rise

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Missy Higgins' "Nightminds."

There is a time, a month After (because there is Before and there is After, like this one event defines everything) when she laughs and laughs and laughs until Henry runs into her room and asks her what’s wrong because she never laughs, and now she can’t stop, tears streaming down her face and neither of them are sure if the tears are hysteria or sadness or a combination of both. 

She laughs because, for once in her life, she got what she wanted. The Savior is gone, Snow White is miserable, and Henry is hers and hers alone.  A wish from years prior, spoken like a prayer with all of the reverence reserved for gods she didn’t understand or believe in but that seemed to condemn her all the same.

She got what she wanted.

It’s hilarious and sad and she thinks about how much she has changed, that something like _this_ would have once brought her joy and now only brings her pain. 

_“Be careful what you wish for, dearie.,”_ Rumple would say.

\----

The dagger sits between her shoulder blades in a harness made of red leather, and she feels it pressing into her each time she takes a deep breath, a cruel reminder of the price of her “happiness.”

( _“I made you a promise I intend to keep. Everyone deserves their happy ending.”_ )

Hook had tried to argue with her over possession of the dagger. He should have it, he said, because he’s her true love and needs to protect her. She didn’t respond --because, really, who was she to lay claim over True Love? – but she took Emma Swan’s dagger (Emma Swan, the Dark One, Emma, Emma, Emma) from his hand and transported herself home.

It weighs against her now, the point digging into the small of her back as she pours over books and spells and pages upon pages of meticulous notes in neat script given to her by Belle French (“I did a lot of research before, with Rumple. I hope it helps.”). But the questions come faster than the answers (How do you separate darkness from light? What happens to her inherent darkness? Does it meld with magical darkness? How do you free Emma while keeping her own darkness, long held and hard won, in tact?)

And beyond the technical questions, there is _why_. _Why_ sacrifice for her, the person who took so much and gave so little for such a long time? _Why_ give up her own happiness? _Why_ , when her sacrifice meant her parents would suffer? _Why_ , when her sacrifice meant that Hook would lose the only thing tethering him to goodness – she heard him say something like that once and she thinks it’s manipulative and unhealthy, but it isn’t her relationship (Emma isn’t her relationship) and it isn’t her business, so she tries to stay out of it and respect the decisions that Emma has made.

She comes up with theories for her technical questions, ways to work around the magic, within the darkness, but she can’t answer _why_ , and trying only makes her head throb and her heart ache.

She keeps the dagger close because it should be hers. 

The dagger should have her name on it, but instead it has Emma’s, and she can’t figure out why. 

\---- 

(If she is being honest with herself, she knows _why_ but she can’t – or won’t – articulate it (because articulating it makes it real). 

It is the same _why_ that prompted her to absorb a death curse and stop the trigger and tempt the Chernabog.

It’s the same _why_ that keeps her going, three months After, still searching and trying and hoping.) 

\----

When she tells Henry, he blames everything on himself.

Her sweet, beautiful boy is so much like his other mother, his shoulders heavy with the problems of the world. She wants to tell him that it isn’t fault, it is hers, but she is still so afraid of losing him, of repeating that awful first year when Emma Swan came into their lives. Henry has already lost one mother (not lost, she reminds herself, misplaced – lost sounds too permanent and she won’t accept that Emma is lost to them forever, she won’t), he doesn’t need to lose faith in the other.

(And how can she explain to him why it’s his fault, when she herself is still unsure? All she knows is that it should be her and not Emma, and that Emma did a stupid thing.)

He locks himself in his room for four days, refusing comfort. When he emerges, he is determined. “How do we get her back? How do we fix this, Mom?”

She wishes she knew.

\----

About a week After, she gets a text message.

“Don’t look for me. It’s not safe for you. Tell Henry I love him.”

She ignores it and instead calls the phone company to try to track the GPS.

(She may or may not have deputized herself in order to do so, and if Verizon got a subpoena from a Sherriff Mills, well, you do what you have to do for the people you care about.) 

\---- 

It doesn’t take very long for Robin’s attempts at comfort to grate on her.

She makes an effort, she does -- because isn’t this what Emma sacrificed herself for? Her happy ending? – but her heart isn’t in it. Her heart, it seems, is not bound by pixie dust fate. 

( _“How about we make today the day we both beat fate?”_ )

When he drives away, she feels strangely like she’s both won and lost at the same time.

\----

The words come to the tip of her tongue so many times. It’s four months After and no one has seen or heard from Emma (apart from one ignored text message) and it would be easy, so _easy_ to bring her there and soothe the part of her that just misses her. 

She misses Operation Mongoose – her and Emma and Henry working together toward a common goal. How foolish of her to think she needed anything beyond that, beyond their little, unconventional family. 

She can’t bring herself to say “Dark One, I summon thee.” Not yet. Not until she has an answer. (Not until she knows that Emma can just be Emma again and not the Dark One.)

\----

The answer comes later. Or, at least, a hypothesis.

She is in the shower and she nearly drops the bottle of shampoo when it comes to her.

They have tried so many things, their efforts fruitless, and hope running so thin among them now. When they found Merlin, months after they began the search, he was nothing more than a drunk old man with no solutions and no compassion, and Regina had nearly crushed his heart before she remembered that she was supposed to be “good,” that Emma had given herself so that Regina’s light would not be extinguished.

Instead, she went home, sent Henry to bed, and drank.

They had also talked about reenacting the old curse (because it was so familiar now, to all of them – a land without magic or memories, but a land where Emma could just be Emma, the swirling Darkness within her stilled in a non-magical world), but found themselves lacking a key ingredient. The one Regina loved most was Henry, and his heart was non-negotiable, Snow and Charming couldn’t bear to give up little Neal (and, Regina reminds herself, Emma wouldn’t want them to, despite all of her misgivings about her younger brother), and the one Hook loved most was Emma herself, which he liked to remind them over and over again.

This, though, this is simple. Risky, but simple.

“Henry!,” she calls down as she towels herself off, hair still a little soapy and suds still dotting her toes, “Call you grandparents and tell them to come over, please.”

She smiles so wide her cheeks almost hurt. 

“I have an idea.” 

\----

She knocks softly on the hotel room door and waits.

Phoenix is hot and her shoes are covered in a thin layer of red dust, but she is here and she is determined and nervous and impatient. She knocks a second time.

It hadn’t been hard to convince Snow and Charming, who would jump at anything now to get their daughter back (their daughter they had abandoned once, had been willing to abandon a second time on the island that still haunts her dreams), no matter how absurd. But Henry, Henry had wavered.

“It’s too risky, Mom.” He had tried to reason. “Let me help. I helped with Operation Mongoose, let me help with this too.” 

She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. “You will help, in your own way. But I need to do this alone.” 

And so she is alone now in front of room 42 in the Motel 6 off of Route 10. She could have summoned Emma, she knows that, but it felt wrong, so she got the GPS information from Verizon and got on a plane.

When the door opens, she hardly recognizes Emma, tired and pale with dead eyes. It has been six months now, six months of missing her, and it takes everything Regina has to not embrace her, pull her in and pour every bit of sorrow into their touch. But this isn’t her Emma, that much is apparent, and Regina needs to focus on the task at hand.

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” 

Emma’s voice is edgy, anger undercutting her words, and Regina can see the Darkness alive within her, aching for release. She has known that darkness well. 

“I’m here to help.” 

Emma scoffs. “So you’re the Savior now? Evil Queen becomes Savior and Savior becomes the Dark One? Isn’t that rich.” It’s a sneer and it stings and it’s not her Emma, she has to remind herself. Not her Emma. 

She pushes back from the door, leaving it hanging open, and Regina walks through. 

“I’m okay, Regina, really.” She’s taken aback by the abrupt change in pace. Emma smiles now, like she’s trying to prove something. Regina supposes that she is. 

“It’s not that bad, being the Dark One. I’m not full of some all-consuming evil or anything. Just the occasional desire to steal candy from babies and strand kittens in trees.” 

She’s trying to make light of things, and Regina _knows_ because this is Emma and this is how Emma deals with things. And this is the Dark One, doing everything it can to retain its power. 

“I have an idea. A way to undo this.” 

Emma bristles (not Emma, the Dark One) and she’s predatory now, backing Regina against a wall. They are close and it is electric and Regina has to focus on why she’s here because this darkness in Emma, it is so alluring. She is angry and alive and the power circles around her, around them, and it could be her undoing if she let it.

“ _This_ is not something that needs undoing. _This_ is who I am. And if you want to undo it, you’re no better than they are.” 

Emma’s voice drops to a harsh whisper, inches from Regina’s face. 

“My parents wanted a child full of goodness and light. They wanted that so much that they traded in another person’s soul. And look at what they got.” She laughs like it hurts, like laughter is a substitute for tears.

“Don’t you get it, Regina? My life is finally my own. I’m no Savior here.” She spits at the title like it is the cause of her every unhappiness, and maybe it is, Regina thinks, maybe being the Savior is as awful a fate as being the Dark One.

Emma pushes back, her smile wide and she looks frightening and _free_ and Regina knows she could use the dagger, could force her to participate in the spell, but she can’t take this away from her, this choice about who to be. Savior or Dark One or just Emma, that is up to her.

“I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Emma.” She reaches behind her and unclips her holster, handing Emma the red leather pouch and the dagger emblazoned with her name. “But Henry needs you. Your parents need you.”

She hesitates, the words stuck in her mouth. She said them once Before, and maybe they weren’t true then, maybe she was exaggerating a bit because she wanted to protect Emma, but this time, she feels the truth of them vibrating through her bones.

“I need you, too.”

And she leaves.

\----

When she returns without Emma in tow, Henry’s face falls and he doesn’t speak to her for a week.

He doesn’t understand. He thinks that she didn’t try hard enough. He thinks that Emma doesn’t love him.

She doesn’t know what to tell him.

\----

She texts Emma a picture of Henry on his birthday. He’s a teenager now and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to that. In the picture, he is blowing out his candles, cheeks inflated and she’s reminded of the picture she took on his fifth birthday when he was all cheeks and wind and happiness.

The response comes four hours later, and it is brief – _thank u_ – but she feels the hope blossom within her and has to work to tamp it down.

\----

Operation Mongoose becomes Operation Swan and its aim is simple: show Emma that she is loved, even now, even Dark.

(They don’t say it, but the aim is also “get Emma back” because it just isn’t the same without her.) 

Henry texts her about school and Grace and volunteering at the animal shelter.

He tells her he loves her.

Regina texts her pictures of kale salad and reminds her that one cannot live on cheese alone.

She doesn’t say anything about love.

(But she thinks it, sometimes, when no one is around and she has the space to be weak.) 

( _Love is weakness, Regina._ )

\---- 

Two months after Arizona, there is a knock on her front door. 

Henry is at soccer practice and she has just gotten home from the grocery store, three bags on the counter (one bag with bread and butter and American cheese because she is a sentimental idiot). 

Emma looks just as ragged as she did in Arizona, dead eyes and angry mouth, but she is _here_ and that has to mean something. She has a root beer in her hand and maybe she’s a sentimental idiot, too.

“How does this work?” She is straight to business, like she is fighting herself, warring with the good in her and the darkness.

“It’s a splitting spell.” Regina leads her into the study and pulls out her materials. “We can’t get rid of the Darkness entirely, but we can dilute it.”

“How?”

“We share it.”

“WHAT?” And Emma is off like a firecracker, all rage and emotion and there she is, in Regina’s space again (like it was once, when things were simple and their roles – Savior, Evil Queen – were reversed). “I became this to keep you away from the Darkness, Regina, and your big plan to save me is to undo that? To martyr yourself because you’re supposed to be evil and I’m supposed to be good? Screw that.”

Her angry eyes go dead again. “Screw you.”

She marches out toward the door and no, no, no this can’t be it because it has been so long and Operation Swan was going so well and she’s here, finally here and no, she can’t leave. Regina grabs the crook of her elbow, pleads with her.

“You need to listen, Emma. You need to calm down.” 

“Calm down? You want me to calm down? I sacrificed myself for you, I fight every day with what I’ve become and you want to throw that out like it’s worthless?” She yanks her arm away and she’s out the door and Regina is right behind her. If Emma leaves now, she’ll never come back, and how can she explain that to Henry? (How can she accept that herself?)

“It’s not worthless. It’s worth _everything_.” She is raw now, exposed and close to breaking because this? This is the truth and it makes her weak and it makes her strong and it might break her but it also might heal her. 

And Emma stops. She is on the sidewalk and she turns to face Regina, standing on the porch.

“I don’t want to take away your darkness, Emma. It is part of you. It always has been.”

Regina thinks that sometimes she’s the only one that sees that, that sees the value in sadness and anger and despair and the cocktail of emotions that make up darkness.

“I know what you’ve done for me. I don’t want to invalidate that. But I want to help you. The splitting spell will dilute the part of you that is the Dark One, it will siphon off half of the Darkness and give it to me. You say that you fight it every day. Let me fight it with you.”

Emma breathes. Regina breathes with her.

“We both know how to live with darkness, Emma.”

Emma steps forward and she can see her wavering, see the fight and oh how she wants to be part of the warring good that is Emma Swan. 

“We would do it together?” 

“Together.” 

The grin spreads slowly across her face, a wide smile that is all _her Emma_ and Regina feels her heart expand. 

They walk together into the house.

\----

 

 


End file.
